January 12, 2010
by James Hufferd, Ph.D.
Founder, 911 Truth of Central Iowa
Barely two weeks ago, on Christmas Day, 2009, a young Muslim man from Nigeria
with a multiple-entry visa to enter the United States was
reported to have attempted to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet bound from
Amsterdam preparing to land at Detroit International Airport by igniting a bomb
hidden in the crotch of his underwear. Passengers aboard the plane prevented
him from succeeding, and potentially from killing all 278 passengers, plus crew.
He was subsequently reported to have trained or received instruction in Yemen
and taken inspiration from an al-Qaeda-connected Islamic mullah who is an American
citizen living in that country and implicated in other terrorist events.
Thus, the incident was construed as a new major case of radical Islamic terrorism
against the United States. Disturbingly, the plot apparently almost succeeded,
for reasons now hotly debated, even though the terrorist’s name and profile
were already in U.S. security service files and on watch lists. Superficially,
it was widely reported
as an open-and-shut case of anti-U.S. Islamic extremism, necessitating a
new round of “security measures” for air travel.
However, almost from the beginning there was another credible source of information
that, when considered alongside other information being reported, substantially
alters the picture and the implication of the collective evidence. Doubtless
for that reason, this second, partially corroborated source has not been thoroughly
exploited or widely examined, but instead has been almost universally ignored
and shunted aside without comment by U.S. officials and the corporate media.
The source is Mr. Kurt Haskell, 39, a successful former U.S. government lawyer,
currently a practicing attorney in greater Detroit along with his wife, Lori.
Together, they were returning from a vacation in Africa on that day on that
same flight from Amsterdam.
The relevant additional sequence that Mr. Haskell apparently alone reported
as an on-site witness occurred in an area near the Amsterdam airport boarding
gate prior to boarding the flight. He told first the FBI, then the Detroit Free
Press and other news outlets, in addition to blogging at mlive.com, that he
first saw the young African man who turned out to be the bomber arrive in the
pre-boarding area somewhat disheveled, accompanied by a well-dressed man who
appeared to be Indian. The Indian-looking man went with the young African up
to the airline representative in charge of boarding access and explained to
him that the young fellow didn’t have a passport, but had to get on the plane
bound for Detroit. The agent replied, in Haskell’s telling, that if the fellow
lacked a passport he would not be permitted to board. In answer, the well-dressed
Indian-looking man averred that the young African man had to board the plane
because he was a Sudanese refugee and added, “This is done all the time.”
The two of them, Haskell tells, were then escorted into a back room to talk
to the airline agent’s supervisor. That was the last Haskell saw of the African
until near the end of the flight, when his failed attempt to detonate a bomb
in his crotch drew the attention of everyone on the plane.
Added to Mr. Haskell’s aberrant testimony the next day were reports from several
of the passengers that another apparently Indian man on board the plane had
curiously videotaped the young Nigerian from the beginning of the flight to
the end. And there were some reported oddities having to do with the bomber’s being subdued, etc.
What could the significance be of these discordant eyewitness reports that
would, if given due credence and not simply dismissed, throw into serious doubt
the official conclusion that a Muslim terrorist plot was being played out on
December 25?
First, and most glaringly, a passenger without a passport cannot display as
a prerequisite for boarding the multiple-entry visa the official version alleged
because a visa appears as a stamp on a passport. And no passenger, as an elementary
tenet of procedure, is ever permitted to board a commercial flight without a
passport, with one notable exception: When a stand-down order has been issued.
And, where could such an effective stand-down order have come from? It could,
conceivably, have been delivered by the well-dressed Indian, in words such as,
“they do this all the time.”
So, if the young Muslim “terrorist” was sponsored not by al Qaeda, but by
some operative country’s “security” services, why would they not have him arrive
fully documented? Elementary — In order to get him into the final boarding
area and onto the plane without having to go through the usual search process
required for boarding that would surely have found his explosives, to involve
in the plot as few personnel (potential eyewitnesses) as possible.
Is such really what happened? Who knows? Is it what the actual eyewitness testimony
of the courageous Kurt Haskell, who put his life squarely on the line to report
it, implies? Absolutely. And, why does it really matter? The answer: Full-body
scanners and continued propaganda smearing, threatening, and intimidating Muslims
anywhere and everywhere to forward a genocidal agenda.
As I said, Mr. Haskell’s perhaps 95%-certain-to-be-accurate testimony, straightforward
and unembellished by him, is understandably ignored and forgotten by U.S. officials
and the corporate media. Even the 9/11 widows (Casazza, Gabrielle, Kleinberg,
and Van Auken) in their statement responding to this incident do not site Haskell’s
testimony or the vast conceptual difference that it makes. (Even though, strangely,
enough, they do state that the bomber was without a passport, something he claims
overhearing). These individuals are, owing to their tragic identity, influential,
and, in my opinion, they need to take stock and perhaps recalibrate their statement.
So, how can Haskell’s testimony ever be corroborated or refuted with
certainty? It is my understanding that international airports are full of 24-hour
security cameras. Why not show us the tapes?